Calipari laments after another close Kentucky loss: ‘We had our chances’
Payback. Rejuvenation. Momentum.
Kentucky had a delicious trifecta within its grasp Tuesday night.
That made the 70-59 loss to red-hot Alabama all the more difficult to accept.
“We had our chances,” UK Coach John Calipari said. “We again got out-toughed. It makes me sick.”
Kentucky’s sixth loss this season by 11 or fewer points came down to the final three-plus minutes in Tuscaloosa. With the score tied at 54, Alabama outscored UK 16-5.
“I’m just disappointed,” Calipari said. “I thought before the game, I thought during the game, I thought we were going to win the game.”
Calipari recalled the timeout with 2:59 left and Alabama leading 56-54 in which he plotted a strategy.
“We got the exact shot we wanted,” Calipari said of a Davion Mintz three-pointer, “and missed it.
“The reality of it is this team isn’t giving up. They’re not quitting. They’re fighting. They just don’t know how to finish a game mentally or physically yet.”
Not for the first time this season, Calipari acknowledged that Kentucky does not have a go-to guy to rely on with winning or losing on the line.
“Look, we don’t have a guy that you throw it to and he goes one-on-one and gets by anybody,” Calipari said. “So, we’ve got to do it differently.”
Kentucky, which fell to 5-10 overall and 4-4 in the Southeastern Conference, came up empty on 20 possessions in which it could have tied the score or taken a lead.
The 20th was the three-point miss by Mintz, who joined Olivier Sarr and Dontaie Allen as the team’s leading scorers with 12 points each.
Kentucky had three baskets in the final seven-plus minutes.
When asked how Kentucky could compensate for the lack of a go-to guy, Sarr had an immediate response. “You execute,” he said.
Calipari lamented all-too-familiar shortcomings: Turnovers (17 in all, nine coming in the final 11 minutes); players passing up open shots, submitting to the opponent’s greater will.
Although losing a fourth time in the last five games, Kentucky’s resolve was on display. Making amends for the 20-point loss two weeks earlier, UK stifled Alabama’s signature three-point attack. Alabama took just four three-point shots in the second half and made only one.
An Alabama offense that ranked 24th nationally (81.8 points per game) had its third-lowest point total of the season (the lowest since losing 64-56 to Clemson on Dec. 12).
Still, Alabama won its 10th straight game and swept two games from Kentucky for the first time since 1988-89 and only the third time ever.
Alabama improved to 14-3 overall and 9-0 in the SEC. Jaden Shackelford led the Tide with 21 points.
Kentucky was never ahead in the first half. But the Cats stayed in the game with defense. Alabama was up 35-32 because Jahvon Quinerly hit a three-pointer at the buzzer.
The game started poorly for UK. Alabama made its first five shots, three coming from three-point range in peeling out to a 13-5 lead.
Worse for Kentucky, Brandon Boston turned his left ankle and crumpled to the floor with 18:17 left.
Kentucky fell behind by as much as 17-8 early. But the half brightened from there. Boston returned. Plus Alabama cooled off. The Tide made eight of its next 26 shots (four of 13 from three-point range) until Quinerly’s shot at the buzzer.
Alabama committed nine turnovers in the half.
Kentucky hung in there even though Sarr had a quiet first half. Sarr, who had been challenged to score, say, 12 to 15 points per game, took only one shot in the game’s first 13 minutes. His first points came on two free throws with 5:15 left. His only basket came on a shot in the lane with 3:55 left.
After Alabama scored the game’s first basket, Kentucky trailed until Mintz’s three-point throw to beat the shot clock went in with 1:38 left. It tied the game at 30-30.
Sarr came alive in the second half. He took UK’s first three shots, and four of the first five.
Sarr’s jumper with 12:49 left — similar to the shots he missed late against Notre Dame and Louisville — gave Kentucky a 43-41 lead. That marked the first lead UK had in either game against Alabama this season.
It also gave Sarr 12 points, which fit into the lower end of the target Calipari had set for the big man in every game.
Oddly, Sarr did not take a shot in the final five minutes.
“I’m proud that they fought,” Calipari said of his players. “I know we’re getting closer. But you just want to win these games. …
”Before you can figure out how to win, you’ve got to figure out things that keep you losing.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 11:25 PM.
